Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail. --PHOTOS--

There was a line of people running down the block, waiting to get in, and I can see why: you don't exactly move through this show quickly. There is so much detail in this work that you really have to take your time. Having been familiar with his large-scale murals, it was great to see his paintings on canvas, but I was really drawn to the pen and ink drawings. They are executed with the most minute details and it seems like this guy can think in both huge and tiny scales, and create dynamically grotesque bodies. And then the pencil drop shadows just did me in – the subtlety was brilliant.

If you can't tell already, I really like Nychos' work. If you've been enjoying his murals at your convenience, go check out the show, I can almost promise you won't be disappointed.

SAN FRANCISCO --- If you haven't gotten all of your holiday shopping done yet, head over to Fifty24SF for some really nice prints. Ranging in price from about $40 to about $4,000, there is certainly enough variety to please anyone. Besides this convenience (and if you're ahead of the shopping curve), you should also head over there to just check them out.

Fitting with the title Legends, this show has work from just about every artist involved with the gallery over the years, and moving many of these images from the front of a T shirt to the gallery wall really gives some perspective on them. It's definitely worth a look and if you have any family in town, this is a great way to show them what SF is made of.

Wendell McShine (lives in Mexico City, from Trinidad) opened his newest show, Raccoon's Law, at Fifty24SF on Saturday night. ARYZ was a tough act to follow, but McShine held his own in the space.

With a combination of a mural, a video, and both drawings and mixed-media works on paper, the diversity of this solo show was impressive. The Raccoon drawings were especially attractive as the way he executed them looked like they actually had fur coming off the page, and you can only imagine how soft it would be to touch. I was lucky to see his work in person through this show, and I hope to encounter more in the future.

ARYZ (Spain) opened his newest gallery show at Fifty24SF last Friday and, if you live in the Bay Area, you need to go. This dude can obviously paint, and he doesn't need an entire building to show his impecable skill. The show has lots of small works on paper which contrast his highly-defined line work to his hard-edged painted objects. The contrast between the hard and soft was the most striking thing to me about his work, since I had never seen it in person before, and the washes blend with the thick paint seamlessly. The show also contains a larger work on canvas, a huge head suspended in the back of the room, and a big wood sculpture of a wolf figure. This diversity in such a small space was impressive, and those of us that went to the opening even got to meet the man in person. If you didn't make it out this weekend, check it out before May 31st when it closes and these works will be off to some very happy new homes.

If you're near the Lower Haight this evening, swing through Fifty24SF (218 Fillmore St.) to view Mr. Sam Flores new solo show Lion and the Lamb opening tonight.

Lion marks Flores' first showing in his hometown in nearly a decade, and his first solo show since 2011's Cairo exhibition at Articulate Baboon. Flores has long been a collaborator with Upper Playground, with his 12Grain line a staple in our collection every year... "My new show delves into themes that I touch on a lot in my work," Flores told us. "The struggle of good and bad light and dark, innocence and evil. I'm taking you to a more rich, colorful world of struggle temptation and hope."

Last night we swung through Ffity24SF in the Lower Haight for a preview of Jeremy Fish's show "Where Hearts Get Left" which opens this Saturday, July 14th (5-9pm) here in San Francisco, Ca.

The show is Fish's ode to all that that makes San Francisco... San Francisco. He illustrates his favorite lores and legends like how the Native Americans believed that the Earth and subsquently San Francisco was created by a silver-fox and coyote as they danced in the Bay Area's constant dense fog... or how a pair of giant grumpy battling turtles under the Earth's crust cause our earthquakes.

Approx 50 14" x 17" drawings take you on a tour of the special San Francisco-centric things that make the city so special to Fish. From the Mission's best burrito spots to SF's first notable quirky self proclaimed Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Fish illustrates not the obvious tourist highlights, but those little things that take a decade of discovery to find and appreciate.

My favorites include the collage of the best under the radar, not your fancy burger jams including my all time favorite, Hamburger Haven on Clement. Let's not forget the group of Native American activists who occupied Alcatraz for 19 months in the late 60s... or that like the city itself is always in a constant state of change (sometimes for the worse), but that, like the Vapor Room R.I.P. (for now), even good things come to an end and out of the ashes, the phoenix will rise.

Fifty24SF emailed over a lil' taste of their opening tonight with Saner (Mexico City). Grab an umbrella and make it tonight. We think it runs 6-9pm as can't find it listed.

Saner is a leading member of contemporary muralists and fine artists working in both Latin America and Europe. His mural work has been inspired by the Mexican Muralist Movement and David Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera. For this exhibition, Saner will be presenting new paintings and drawings on paper, featuring his signature animal and human hybrid characters. ~complete details

Last Friday, we swung through Fifty24SF to check out their current show coinciding with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's newest feature/ horror film, Twixt (art directed by Jimmy DiMarcellis aka Porous Walker).

The show references many scenes from the film, which Coppola wrote himself, and which struggles to win over critics (ouch).

Incredible set design complete with a heavy duty fog machine, it certainly was photo worthy. The bird houses were priced very inexpensively with many sold by the time we arrived... Didn't even recognize the gallery is was so reworked.

Our friends and old neighbors at Fifty24SF are hosting an exhibition and installation coinciding with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's newest feature film, Twixt set to open Friday the 13th here in San Francisco. ~more info & pics.

Ol' buddy Porous Walker (Jimmy DiMarcellis) worked in the film's art department, so you know the show & film are going to be interesting.

Building off the unique lineage of street photography in San Francisco, Sonnenberg’s unfiltered, raw, and often humorous work has made her an active documentarian of a new generation of SF youth culture. Her intimate portraits of her friends and of herself are often candid, revealing a truth about both the city and the personalities that exist inside. The photos present a world of unbridled optimism and a carefree rebirth of homegrown bohemian culture in the midst of a city preoccupied by technological innovation. -complete show details

Spanish artists San & Escif's See You in Croatan exhibition at FIFTY24SF Gallery opened last week here in San Francisco. The pair took a road trip around the West Coast of the USA thinking about and creating this show.

Last Saturday, June 11th, was Swampy's solo show at Fifty24SF. The show was just a one day art show (a lot of work for one night show), but we were able to get a quick peak today before they started cleaning it up.

A fake wall misleads what you're about to witness. Looks like a tiny gallery space, but there's more than meets the eye.

Lift this painting to be taken to the back room where the magic happens... or should say happened.

I'm down in Oaxaca, Mexico right now, and I saw the flyer for Swampy art show on your blog. I shot this photo a few weeks ago. The wall was just above a secluded beach near the Puerto Escondido town. -derekdunfee.com

Thanks for the photo, Derek. Yep, his show opens @Fifty24SF this Saturday, June 11th (7-10pm).

FFDG & Fifty24SF will be opening shows on the same evening from here on out. Next opening: April 7th where FFDG opens Magician's Garden featuring paintings and sketches by Portland based Josh Keyes. Fifty24SF opens The Heaviest by KMNDZ. 7-10pm

Thompson lives and works in San Francisco. A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz where he was a 2007 Irwin Scholar, his work has been exhibited locally at Garage Sale Projects, Mollusk, Needles and Pens, and in Brooklyn NY.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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